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Flaam, Norway
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Day at Sea, September 1
We woke early, with no sense of urgency as we knew there was nowhere to go. We had a leisurely breakfast in the Grand Dining Room and then Daryl did another load of laundry. She has made friends with the young man from the Philippines who cleans the laundries and they had a long conversation about books, libraries and Kindles. Then we spent the day reading and finishing notes for the journal from the first leg of the trip. The sea was slightly rough and it was breezy, so not terrible warm. Rob finally had the cold Daryl had fought for 5 days in the first leg, so a slow day was a good thing. We had dinner at Red Ginger, which was good as always. It rained hard all night.
Flaam, Norway, September 2
We woke to a light rain and low clouds over the hills, to find ourselves in the Sojnefjord with cliffs on both sides and lots of waterfalls. The original plan had been to anchor and tender in and there was some concern after the Visby experience. We saw a smaller Fred Nelson Cruise Lines ship that we had seen in St Petersburg and it was anchored, but they had arranged for us to dock. Marina took up the whole dock and then some. The workers had to go out in a small boat to get the lines and tie them off.
We were early to leave the shp as we had signed up
for a 7 hour excursion. It started by taking a train from Flaam (the station was
a 3 minute walk from the ship) to Myrdal, from sea level to 800 metres, with 20
tunnels, gorgeous waterfalls and a roaring river from all the rain. This part of
the trip took an hour and then we changed trains and went to Voss, which is a
really nice village on a lake, which took another hour. We walked about 2 blocks
from the train station to the very nice Park Hotel, somewhere we would stay as
it was right on the lake, where they served a couple of hundred of us a huge
buffet lunch with 8-10 different types of salmon and other smoked fish as well
as other local specialties, hot dishes and various desserts.
We then had time to walk around near the lake and in town, although since it was
Sunday nothing was open. Voss is what is called a large villge with about 6,000
residents and another 12,000 in the surrounding area. According to our guide,
there is a Main Street and then The Other Street which runs parallel. She lives
in a flat above stores on Main Street. Everyone knows everyone and helps
everyone and the children play in the street together. The old church in Voss is
the center of town is the main gathering place and services were just letting
out when we finished lunch, so the cafes in town were beginning to open up.
Norway is certainly a clean, beautiful, well cared for and affluent country.
After lunch, the large group boarded three buses
to take a different route back to the ship. Our first stop was the Tvinne
waterfalls, which were roaring due to the recent rains. Then we headed to the
old Stalheim Hotel for another food stop – coffee, tea and pastries – and
fantastic views down the valley.
The buses then took a very slow downhill road with multiple tight hairpin turns
and even more waterfalls. We stopped for photos at the two largest. The guide
told us Norwegian myths and troll legends as we drove.
Our final stop was at Gudvangen to see where a river ends and becomes a fjord –
you can actually see it. It was raining then and we walked out over a bridge at
the transition point, looked at a statue to the Vikings and saw an inn where all
the roofs of the rooms were alive, with 7 layers of birch bark, sod and
different plants growing on them.
We then took the quick way back to Flaam through the tunnels while she talked about Norway's economy, educational system (free), tax system (35-50%), medical system (free), salaries ($20/hr at McDonald's), etc. Things have been even better since they discovered oil in the North Sea and they have set aside $500 billion for the future and in the event the oil is depleted. They believe in equality for men and women and there are no salary differences and they are very focused on their children so the fund will provide for them should something go awry. The rain continued as we left the dock at 6:45pm and through our steak dinner in Polo.
